Stony Brook University recently hosted the 2025 Cray User Group (CUG) Meeting, an annual event for experts in high-performance computing (HPC). The meeting took place from May 4-8 at the Westin Jersey City Newport hotel in New Jersey. It gathered a global community to collaborate and advance Cray systems and supercomputing innovation.
The CUG 2025 meeting attracted nearly 200 HPC specialists worldwide, marking it as one of the most dynamic gatherings in recent years. The event featured technical sessions, panels, and workshops with discussions on the rapid evolution of HPC across academia, industry, and government research.
Robert Harrison, director of the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University, opened the event. He highlighted collaborative innovation's importance and emphasized how CUG aligns with Stony Brook’s mission to lead in technological advancement and education.
A keynote presentation by Mike Zingale, a professor at Stony Brook and a leading figure in computational astrophysics, was a conference highlight. Zingale discussed supercomputing's role in modeling stellar explosions and astrophysical phenomena. His talk showcased HPC's potential for extraordinary science and underscored open collaboration between researchers and system developers.
Following the main conference, Stony Brook hosted a two-day workshop titled "Expanding Horizons in AI with HPC" from May 9–10. Organized by Joseph Schuchart and Eva Siegmann of Stony Brook University along with Shinjae Yoo of Brookhaven National Laboratory, this public event explored artificial intelligence (AI) and HPC synergy. It highlighted challenges and opportunities in combining AI with HPC to accelerate scientific research.
Bill Tang from Princeton University delivered the opening keynote on the first day of the workshop. He shared insights into how machine learning combined with advanced HPC can address significant scientific challenges like fusion energy utilization for grid energy generation.
The symposium successfully brought together researchers from local universities as well as national government labs to discuss AI's role in scientific research and computing.
Further details on both events are available on the IACS website.